Podcast Summary: Acquiring Minds

Episode: How to 4x a Small Manufacturer – Tato Corcoran Returns (February 19, 2026)

Overview

In this update episode, host Will Smith revisits Tato Corcoran, who appeared on the show in early 2024 after acquiring a tiny manufacturing business ($400K revenue, 3 employees) with no prior manufacturing experience. The discussion centers on Tato’s journey quadrupling revenue, evolving her leadership amid relentless challenges, and providing candid insights for acquisition entrepreneurs—especially those new to small business ownership, manufacturing, and leadership. Tato also shares her perspective as a woman in a male-dominated industry, the lessons learned from seeking unconventional mentors, and how systems like “Profit First” transformed her business.

Episode Structure

1. Rapid Recap: The Business & Growth
2. Emotional Journey: From Overwhelm to Momentum
3. Leadership Evolution: Challenges with a Diverse Team
4. Creative Mentorship & Implementing Structure
5. Financial Systems: "Profit First" and Owner’s Pay
6. Reflections on Manufacturing, Market Prospects, and Real Estate
7. Being a Woman in Manufacturing and New Motherhood
8. Key Lessons for Searchers and Owners
9. Notable Quotes

1. Rapid Recap: The Business & Growth

• Business Purchased: Brandt Molded Marble, a small manufacturer of stone countertops and showers, predominantly for new construction/remodeling (05:13).
• Purchase Details: Acquired June 2022; normalized revenue around $400K and 3 employees (06:00–07:05).
• Owner’s Background: Tato spent 10 years in tech at Salesforce before moving to Milwaukee and buying the business—without prior manufacturing experience (07:21).
• Trajectory & Key Numbers:
  • 2023: $985K revenue, $80K profit—“I was super proud of that… [after] bleeding for that sustained period.” (08:47–09:40)
  • 2024: $1.16M (20% growth), $225K net (10:24)
  • 2025: $1.6M (beat goal of $1.3M), $300K net—quadruple the original baseline (11:09)
  • Growth Levers: Strategic asset purchase, shop physical improvements, team stability.

2. Emotional Journey: From Overwhelm to Momentum

• Initial Hardships: Complete lack of manufacturing experience, overwhelming stress, frequent “fetal position moments” (08:11).
  • “Many fetal position moments. Daily crying… These were all markers of your episode.” – Will Smith (08:12)
• Turning Point: Reached $1M after 18 months; stabilized team; confidence returned (08:20–09:40).
• Current State: Extremely proud of the progress, but “the challenges just change”—not easier, just different (11:55–12:50).
  • “It doesn’t get easier. The challenges just change.” – Advice from a fellow mom, cited by Tato (12:13)

3. Leadership Evolution: Challenges with a Diverse Team

• Workforce Dynamics: All but one team member are Latin American immigrants; most are unskilled laborers with little English and limited education (25:32–26:11).
  • Tato’s employees literally “walked here” from South America—the gulf in experience and worldview was “an absolute moat” between her and the team (26:09).
• Key Challenges:
  • Language and cultural barriers; employee expectations vastly different from corporate models.
  • Difficulty with basic management: employees making their own schedules, fairness complaints about minor pay differences, disciplinary consistency (25:39–30:28).

Memorable Example:

“I got a lot of advice—‘have weekly one-on-ones with people.’... You can’t be like, ‘Hey Jesus, it’s your one-on-one today.’ Be like, ‘What the F are you talking about?’” — Tato (28:11)

4. Creative Mentorship & Implementing Structure

• Admits to Feeling Like a “Doormat” (32:52): Insecurity about leadership, desire to be liked, struggled to assert authority.
• Mentorship Hack: Starbucks Manager Story (34:07)
  • Sought advice not from her tech network, but from the local Starbucks manager (Alex), who managed a high-turnover, rules-driven environment.
  • “I own a general labor business…and I have absolutely no leadership experience whatsoever. And I’m really struggling... but you seem like you know what you’re doing, and I think that you can help me.” (35:46)
  • Built a simple but clear employee handbook; first-ever team meeting to re-establish authority.

Leadership Lesson:

“Your best employees crave rules... when I realized that distinction, I felt so much less insecure and so much more confident moving forward.” (41:24)

Implementation Moment:

"We need structure around here... Here’s the new employee handbook... This is how we’re rolling now." (41:59–42:44)

• Long-Term Team Impact: The best employees responded positively; structure “weeded out” those not aligned with team values (45:37).

5. Financial Systems: "Profit First" and Owner’s Pay

• Learning Financial Discipline:
  • Tato admits she had “as little preparation as possible” for small business finance. Needed a system to pay herself and plan for taxes and reinvestment (51:34–54:22).
• Adopted Profit First:
  • Took advice from a fellow entrepreneur/accountant: implemented the “Profit First” system over four quarters.
  • “It forces you to start with the end in mind… you immediately take out a certain percentage of revenue and pay it to yourself before anything else.” (54:28)
  • Grew distributions from 1% to 5%+ of top line for owner pay, profit, and taxes. Remaining 85% runs the OPEX.
• Practical Impact: Moved from insecurity about drawing cash to consistent, systematized income—enabled real estate reinvestment.

Tato vs. Accountant:

“My CPA was like, ‘You realize this is stupid, right?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t care… this is what we’re doing.’” (59:32)

6. Reflections on Manufacturing, Market Prospects, and Real Estate

• Real Estate as First Love & Hedge:
  • Tato and her husband are both real estate investors; belief that owning business real estate is a critical hedge and her “clearest path to wealth.” (16:07)
  • Willing to sell the business if the right offer comes—or pivot to full-time real estate as family grows (18:23–19:31).
• Is Manufacturing for Non-Experts?
  • “100% yes,” Tato believes grit and learning by doing trumps background—“very few things in life actually aren’t learnable.” (60:03–61:16)
• Construction Market Outlook:
  • Bullish on Midwestern construction/remodeling activity—sees “insatiable” demand for skilled trades and manufacturing suppliers (62:08).
  • Employee supply (immigrants)—recognizes this is complex amid political uncertainty, but focuses on supporting and enriching employee lives with English lessons and personal help (64:09).

7. Being a Woman in Manufacturing and New Motherhood

• Ongoing Gender Bias:
  • “Pretty much anything discussed on this podcast is gonna be male dominated… You have to show up with such a thick skin and basically regenerate your soul every day.” (66:27–69:17)
  • Cites being mistaken for a homeowner on job sites and asked if her “husband” should co-sign contracts (70:27).
• Upside:
  • Stands out—helps her win business, enables minority business certifications (69:12–69:54).
  • Advice to women: “If you can figure out how to wear it with a badge of honor… you can definitely use it to your advantage.”
• Motherhood: Managed her best-ever year in business while pregnant and with a newborn. “Never endured such a chaotic couple months,” but is positive and energized (11:55).

8. Key Lessons for Searchers and Owners

• Seek Peer Learning—not always “experts” with corporate pedigrees, but operators facing similar challenges (49:02).

“Find the person who’s doing the thing. There’s never a moment where you know so much that you don’t need to seek that out from somebody else.” (50:00)

• Structure is Essential:
  • Even a two-page handbook transforms culture and performance.
  • The best employees welcome clarity and discipline.
• Start Paying Yourself Early:
  • Don’t just “see what’s left.” Implement owner pay as a first principle (54:28).
• Mission & Privilege of Small Business: Owners have the opportunity—and sometimes the obligation—to fundamentally change lives, especially for vulnerable employees (64:09–65:49).

9. Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On Early-Stage Challenge
  • “So many fetal position moments.” (08:11)
• On Leadership Struggle
  • “Every day I was just like, ‘My employees think I’m a doormat. Seriously, that’s… I see it, I’m at least aware of it.’” (32:52)
• Starbucks Manager Inspiration
  • “Imagine the copious amount of bullshit that guy deals with in a day… I’m gonna go talk to that guy.” (35:44)
• Employee Handbook Epiphany
  • “Your best employees crave rules… they practically snatch the paper out of my hand to sign and hand it back.” (41:24–41:36)
• Profit First System
  • “It forces you to start with the end in mind… immediately take out a certain percentage… and pay it to yourself before anything else.” (54:28)
  • “My CPA was like, ‘You realize this is stupid, right?’ And I’m like, ‘I don’t care… this is what we’re doing.’” (59:32)
• On Being a Woman in SMB
  • “You have to show up with such a thick skin and basically regenerate your soul every day… People are just always gonna look at you with a side eye.” (69:17)
• On Impacting Employees’ Lives
  • “The chance every single day to change the lives of the people who work for me… that’s arguably my number one mission.” (64:09)
• On Small Business Ownership
  • “You go from something that is worth nothing… to something that is definitely worth something. And that is the whole gig.” (14:59)

Timestamps of Key Segments

• [05:13] – Business overview and acquisition context
• [08:11] – Emotional struggle and early-stage pain
• [09:40] – The first real profit; reinvestment in the business
• [11:09] – Hitting $1.6M, quadruple growth, pride in team and self
• [12:13] – “Challenges just change” (motherhood-business parallels)
• [25:32–30:28] – Managing a diverse and vulnerable workforce
• [34:07–41:24] – Meeting the Starbucks manager: the mentorship pivot
• [54:22–59:32] – Implementing “Profit First”; financial structure & owner pay
• [62:08] – Thoughts on construction, market, and labor prospects
• [66:27–70:27] – Being a woman in manufacturing
• [64:09–65:49] – On improving employees’ lives

Speaker Attribution Key

• Will Smith (WS): Host, interviewer, clarifier.
• Tato Corcoran (TC): Guest, owner/operator of Brandt Molded Marble.

Tone & Style Notes

• Direct, real, sometimes raw—a blend of self-deprecating humor and practical insight.
• Tato is both candid about her struggles and relentlessly optimistic and proactive.
• Many “hard knocks” lessons, but interspersed with actionable advice and encouragement.

For Listeners: Takeaways

• Small business ownership is a marathon: prepare for constant adaptation and learning.
• Leadership is learnable, but requires humility and creative resourcefulness.
• Structure and clarity are transformative, even (especially) for unsophisticated teams.
• Financial guardrails like Profit First can be life-changing for owner-operators.
• Make use of the small business/searcher community—don’t go it alone.
• Being different (as a woman, as a non-manufacturer, as an immigrant employer) is a double-edged sword—embrace and leverage it.

For more insight into buying and operating small businesses, subscribe to Acquiring Minds and check out additional episode summaries at acquiringminds.co.